Thursday, May 26, 2011

If there's a muscle that doesn't already hurt, CrossFit will find it

After work yesterday, I rode my bike to CrossFit. It was one of our first sunny, warm days of the year, and the drivers seemed very focused on the weather and not on the road. A friend of mine posted a similar observation on Facebook. I ride to CrossFit on a very busy road and I was very observant last night after seeing how people seemed to be driving.

When I got to CrossFit, I had already decided in my head to scale the workout to an easy level. I was just so sore and tired from Tuesday and my bike riding that I felt like I needed an easier workout.

After our warm-up, the first part of the workout was 5x8 of dumbbell presses. I wanted to take it easy on my shoulder, so I used 25# dumbbells rather than the 40# or 45# I would normally use. I got through those sets without feeling any problems in my shoulder. Then, our MetCon was as follows:

As quickly as possible:

Single-leg deadlifts, in sets of 21-18-15-12-9-6-3, with each set followed by a 200 meter run.

The prescribed weight for men was 95#, which I knew I could do pretty easily. I got through this one pretty well, staying close to some people who are normally way faster than I am. This workout just suited my strengths pretty well. My total time was just under 11 minutes.

The purpose of the workout, including our warm-up, had been to focus on the hamstrings. The single-leg deadlifts stress the hamstrings a lot, and then running hard with tired hamstrings is another stress on that muscle group. Today, both hamstrings are very sore. Going into the workout, my hamstrings might have been my only muscle group that didn't hurt. Now, I hurt everywhere.

After the workout, I had another ART/Graston treatment done on my right shoulder. It was a painful treatment, but my range of motion was really improved afterward. Before the treatment, I couldn't move my arm backwards at all without pain, and it was easy after the treatment. The total range of motion without pain improved dramatically with this 15 minute treatment.

Today is a rest day, and I'll probably run or hike most of this coming weekend, rather than lifting. That will hopefully give my shoulder a break for a few days.

For the first time in years, I won't be attending the Vermont City Marathon on Sunday. In the past 8 years or so, I've either run the full race, run on a relay team, helped to pace a friend, or just been an observer. This year, it will be none of the above, and I'm going to try to enjoy a quiet weekend at home with my family. I looked at the regional race calendar, wondering if I might find a low key 5K or 10K somewhere, but I think the VCM has scared other races away from Memorial Day Weekend. It's the second biggest marathon in New England, and other races that tried to compete might have some attendance problems.